My new favorite way to refer to Mandarin in Taigi is Tiong-kok-uē
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中国语? Pronunciation looks similar to Cantonese.
語 in Taigi would be gí or gú depending on the dialect.
Uē would be 話, which is a malformed way to write 䛡 (*[k]ʷˤat), which is a cognate with 曰 (*[ɢ]ʷat)
Cantonese is also closer to Middle Chinese, and 中國 would sound pretty similar in most languages with pronunciation derived from Middle Chinese.
Middle Chinese: /ʈɨuŋ kwək̚/
Taigi: Tiong kok
Cantonese: Zung1 gwok3
Sixian Hakka: Chûng koet
Meixian Hakka: Zung1 guêd5
Teochew (Minnan): Dong1 gog4
Mindong: Dṳ̆ng guók
Japanese: Chū goku
Korean: Jung guk
Vietnamese: Trung Quốc
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For a split second, my brain saw Mexican Hakka.
I was like…wait a minute…
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TBH I’m not really happy with any of the names except “Mandarin” or “Man-da-lín”.
But I have been met with confused looks saying “官話”.
中國話 and 華語 are both too broad and CCP-propaganda-esque.
There is an original 官話, also known as the Chinese Koine, based on the Nanjing language. When Europeams first used Mandarin to refer to a Chinese language, they were referring to the Chinese Koine. It was in use well into 1906 as documented by plenty of Europeans. It was also much closer to late Middle Chinese, thus more similar to Cantonese and Taigi.
There’s always Maori Hakka
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Sure, but the meaning of 官話 is clear in both “Chinas” - “language of the government” or something.
Really there’s no good name for Mandarin.
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Because it is really new and artificial to a certain extent.
Found a lecture on Tsuân-tsiu language (泉州話) on a government website about lâm-kuán music (南管).
https://taiwanopera.moc.gov.tw/index/zh-tw/video/7850
Part 1
https://taiwanopera.moc.gov.tw/index/zh-tw/video/7851
Part 2
Full on Tsuân-tsiu tones sounds a bit different from your typical Taigi. Full on Ē-mn̂g (Amoy) language sounds even more different from the typical Taigi.
For a nice relatively neutral term, I prefer 中文.
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Tone table from the second lecture.
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I don’t know, I don’t like using 中文 in any Chinese language. It’s the same as saying ‘Chinese’ in English, to me - while everyone will understand what you mean, it’s not the most precise.
I’m linking this other topic since these threads seem very similar. Maybe we could combine them?
Final note, the TLI has Taiwanese classes and you can do it via skype.
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“Everyone will understand what you mean” seems precise enough to me. I think it’s much better than politicized terms like 國語 and 普通話.
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Yeah, not trying to tell you how to speak or anything, just sharing my thoughts. Most important is definitely both sides understanding what’s being said. To me, personally, saying ‘Chinese’ or ‘中文’ is not fully unpoliticized, as it implies to some extent that other languages are ‘lesser’ and languages like Hokkien or Cantonese are ‘dialects’ instead of full-fledged languages.
Feel free to argue with me on this, I know I have some hot takes (though I’m not sure if we should gum up this thread). Dialect vs. language vs. accent is a very blurred line, with lots of politics, culture, and identity wrapped up in the discussion. (“A language is just a dialect with a flag and a border.”)
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Just out of curiosity, what is your preferred term (in Chinese)?
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Ah, you caught me 
My habit is to say 國語 when talking about spoken Mandarin (I occasionally use 普通話 as well), I say 中文語言 to refer to ‘Chinese languages’, I use 中文 to refer to written Chinese.
To be honest I’m not sure there’s a term that would really satisfy me, like you said there are politics around 國語 and 普通話. Linguistic hierarchy/differentiating between dialects, languages, etc. is much more important to me than most; I use 國語/普通話 because in my mind ‘national/common language’ doesn’t imply anything about the linguistic differentiation and (to me) is relatively neutral.
I wish there were something better, like 北方話 or something. I used to say 漢語 but it also feels weird to bring Han into it, 華語 doesn’t feel right to me, either. Maybe we can bring back 官話?
I think about this too much…
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But in common usage, 中文 refers to the spoken language as well. You don’t find “National Language” too politicized? And using 普通話 in Taiwan would get you some serious side-stares…
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I use 中文 to refer to any written Chinese, not just Mandarin. To that effect, there is no one pronunciation of a character; 中 has a different spoken form depending on which language you’re speaking.
No, I don’t find ‘national language’ to be too politicized, it is the language spoken nationally in schools, governments, etc. I suppose part of it is that it’s a (slightly) more specific, different term than 中文, not that I necessarily love using 國語. I only use 普通話 if I’m speaking Cantonese or talking with Chinese coworkers, but if it weren’t for the association with China I would use that term since ‘common language’ is a more neutral term IMO.
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You do realize that in Taiwan, 中文 is used to refer to spoken and written Mandarin though, right?
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